The Health Ministry has drawn up a list of experts who would be consulted in the next few months to give their views on the draft National Population Policy submitted in 1994 by a team of experts under the chairmanship of the renowned scientist M S Swaminathan.

The ``re-drafted'' draft would be approved by the Cabinet and is likely to be tabled in the winter session of parliament, Health Minister Dalit Ezhilmalai has said.

The Swaminathan report has been hanging fire since 1994 as there were many suggestions contained in it that did not go down well with the Family Welfare establishment. For example, the Swaminathan draft proposed the establishment of a Population and Social Development Commission reporting directly to the PM. But this would have meant that the Commission would also hold the purse-strings of the not inconsiderablefamily welfare funds.

The draft had also recommended that the health authorities go in for hormonal methods of contraception for women, justifying it by saying India had adequate scientific set-up for testing for safety, reliability and effectiveness.

But this proposal was opposed by women's groups, who raised fears that Indian women would be used as ``guinea pigs'' by western drug manufacturers.